This poem was recently revised, and sue to formatting problems has been re-posted out of chronological order.

“You Are a Person of Strong Sense of Duty”

Feb 17 2009

The fortune cookie

teases open like a wish-bone -

the gentle resistance

of clasped wings

pried apart,

giving way

to hard edges, and shattered shards.

Nice generic predictions

you can leave

or take.

We complete this communal meal

with cookies that taste

like drywall.

And with a small flutter of hope

for love, treasure, friends,

the good ones, taken to heart

glossing over the rest.

Or scratching our heads

when Confucius inscrutably says . . .

Somewhere, in a cookie factory

that smells of ink, and sweetened dough

a man is frantically stuffing them in,

as a conveyor

pumps them out like hot cakes.

Apparently, good fortune does not rub off

as he sits, hour after hour

in his dead-end job,

lost and luckless

breathing-in crumbs.